Day 46 Austria 3/11/2010 Vienna. Trains and on foot.

We decided to stay for one more day, Bratislava will have to wait. Discussing with Harlan where to visit the previous evening we saw that there is a hidden Vienna tour every Wednesday. With the promise of seeing some of Vienna's underground passages it looked like a good plan.

What turned out to be less of a good plan was the haircut in the morning. The Turkish non English speaking barber even showed me the numbers on the clippers before he started. How I came to end up with what looks like a grade one all over is beyond me. Still I wont have to get it done again for a while. Debs still hasn't stopped laughing.

We were glad we did most of our sightseeing yesterday as we stepped out to a light rain and a much colder day. We spent the morning contemplating buying an e-reader for Debs but eventually weren't happy with the selection on offer. We would really like an Amazon Kindle, but getting one when you are on the road is difficult.

The tour was due to start at 1:30pm, so we went into the city centre and had a walk around the shopping streets before it started. The tour was very interesting, especially the crypt of St Michaels complete with human bones and mummified bodies. We were joined on the tour by most of the people we had been drinking with last night, plus Harlan the Barman.

The tour lasted rather longer than we had thought, so a relaxing day became a somewhat more tiring.

A few beers tonight and then bed, we leave Austria behind tomorrow and head to Slovakia.

Day 45 Austria 2/11/2010 Vienna. Underground trains and on foot.

Debs didn't think I would get up this morning and to be fair it wasn't easy, but we were on the underground to the city by 8:30am. After two coffees I even felt a little better, how I looked was a different matter!

We arrived at the Spanish riding school early to get tickets for the morning practise. We had not been early enough last time we were here, so Debs was really keen to go. It was just as well that we got there early as the queues later on were quite long, plus we got a seat in the main arena. We were lucky enough to see the horses performing some of their famous jumps, which according to the leaflet was quite rare during practise. This of course may be a bit of clever marketing but then I am a little cynical!

Debs really enjoyed seeing the Lipizzaners in action and probably could have been there for the full 2½ hours. After about an hour the practise starts to repeat itself though.

From the riding school we headed through the Hofburg to see all of the vast buildings. Vienna really is a very beautiful city, plus the weather was warm and sunny. From the Hofburg we visited the Parlament and the Rathaus and then climbed the tower at St Stephans for a view of the city. With hindsight going to the Palace Schonbrun and its huge park as well was probably a step too far. By then we had been on our feet all day and the light was starting to fade. It was a very tired Debs that I brought back to the hostel!

While Debs rested I went out to get some food for dinner and managed to get a larger rear sprocket for Debs Rohloff hub. Hopefully when I get round to putting it on this will help her with the hills.

After a rather large dinner we spent a pleasant evening in the company of Harlan the Kiwi barman and some American students. Today has been a very good if somewhat tiring day.